


Stitches

by blazezombie



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Graphic Description, Graphic Violence, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 08:32:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6277237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazezombie/pseuds/blazezombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MacCready and Jessica are hiding from the rain after taking care of some raiders that were bothering a nearby settlement. MacCready learns how to stitch someone up for the first time and Jessica revieals the stitches of her past.</p>
<p>Trigger Warning:This work contains depictions of blood, some gore and gun violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitches

**Author's Note:**

> Sentence Prompts #1"I don't hate you."  
> and  
> #2 "Maybe there's more to me than what meets the eye."
> 
> NOTE: Jessica is not my sole survivor. She is a companion of my sole survivor, Alexa, and also survived the cryogenic pods for "unknown" reasons.

“Why do you hate me?” MacCready asks with a hiss following shortly after as Jessica continues to sew up the large cut on his side.

“I don’t hate you.” Jessica says plainly, focused on her current task. Though MacCready’s making it hard with all of his squirming. “If I did, I would have let you bleed out... or worse.”

MacCready groans, tipping his head back as she pulls the thread through. He brings a hand to his mouth and bites down on it to stop the curses that threaten to leave his lips. Jessica can’t help the smile that pulls at her lips as she watches his act like a child. 

“Breath, Mac.” He lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, shakily, and watches Jessica lean away from him with a smirk. “Is it over?” He whines as he looks down to see the cut is perfectly sewn up. He sighs in relief and sags in his chair, causing Jessica to giggle as she stands to get him clean bandages.

“Let me see you hold a straight face while you’re getting sewn up.” MacCready pouts, sitting up straight as she takes a seat, facing his side once more.

“Alright, you can sew me up next time.” She says with a smile as she places a clean bandage over the wound and starts wrapping his torso.

MacCready laughs, “Yeah, right. I’ve never used a needle in my life.” A frown suddenly makes its way to his lips and Jessica figures that he’s struck a bad memory. “My w- Well… someone would always do it for me.”

Jessica gives him a curious look, but doesn’t push any further as she sits back in her chair once more and crosses one leg over the other. She analyzes her work and nods once. “You can learn how to stitch wounds on me. I trust you.” Jessica looks at herself, sees a decent gash on her forearm and shrugs. She gets up once more picks up a table and sets it between them before grabbing a bottle of vodka. She cleans the needle with the alcohol before she cleans the wound and the area around it. When MacCready realizes what she’s doings his eyes widen and he holds his hands up.

“Wait, wait, wait. There’s no way-”

“You can do it, Mac.” Jessica says, looking directly into his eyes with confidence. MacCready bites the inside of his cheek in hesitation. Jessica spins the needle between her thumb and index finger with a playful smirk and it brings a small breath of laughter to him.

“I’d only be making the scar worse.” He says, trying to get her to change her mind.

“I’m not worried about it. I’ve had my fair share of scars.” Jessica says, setting both her arms on the table. The needle still between her fingers.

“Oh yeah?” MacCready asks motioning to her arms on the table. “No offence, but I highly doubt that a vault dweller has many war stories to talk about.”

Jessica chuckles softly and shakes her head at him, “Assuming is a bad habit to have, Mac. Maybe there’s more to me than meets the eye. Hm?”

“Well, let’s hear it then.” MacCready chuckles, sitting back with a glint in his eyes. “I haven’t heard anything about you except that you came from one of the Vaults around here.”

Jessica scratches the back of her head and sighs, “Alright... well… I was alive before the nukes fell.”

MacCready snorts, shaking his head, “Yeah, right.”

“I’m not kidding.” Jessica chuckles as she sits down in the chair at the opposite side of the small end table. “They fooled us. Put us is cryogenic pods and left us there until we… defrosted… recently. Lex and I were the only ones left alive.”

MacCready blinks at her a few times and waits for her to start laughing, but it never comes. “Are you fu… Are you serious?”

“Yup.” Jessica snickers, “I went from going to sleep at twenty-two years old to waking up at two hundred and thirty-two years old.”

“Never thought I’d meet someone I was older and younger then at the same time.” MacCready says, making Jessica laugh. “But you knew what the world was like before. Must have been nice.”

“Depends on who you’re talking to.” Jessica shrugs. “I was a soldier. I fought in the war in Canada for one year and was sent to China for three more before coming home for some much needed R&R. That’s when the bombs fell.” MacCready doesn’t know what to say, only staring at his hands; feeling guilty for assuming she was some spoiled vault dweller. He should have known better from meeting that other vault dweller in the Capital Wasteland.

“Relax. You didn’t know.” Jessica says calmly, looking out into the rain as it pours outside the shack they’ve set up shelter in. “No one other than Lex knows what I did before the war… and she doesn’t even know all of it. But, here’s the deal. I’ll tell you some of my story as long as you learn how to sew up wounds. Starting now. How about it?”  
Mac presses his lips into a line. It was tempting to hear what the war was like. He sighs through his nose and grabs the needle out of Jessica’s hand carefully, the string already run through it. She smiles widely and sets her right arm on the table, facing the doorway of the shack.

“How far away should I start?” MacCready asks readying himself at her arm.

“Leave enough space for some tugging. You don’t want it to tear from a fraction of a movement. Oh, and sew away from yourself first.” Jessica says before pointing to part of her arm without touching it. MacCready gently holds the needle to wear she pointed and waits for assurance. “Yep, that’s it.”

MacCready pokes the needle through and looks up nervously but Jessica hasn’t flinched. She glances at him slowly and he jerks his head back down, the heat rising to his face from being caught.

“So where should I begin?” She sighs as he continues to, slowly, sew the cut. “I joined as soon as I turned seventeen in 2072. I went to a bunch of specialized schools for my first year in. Learned how to jump out of Vertibirds and parachute out of airplanes. Learned how to do first aid, like sewing people up.” She smiles and nods to his side, drawing his attention for a moment and making him smile as well. “Then, I was put into a unit that... how do I explain it? We were the soldiers they would send in for important missions… and most of the time is we ended up well past enemy lines.”

“I’ve… killed a lot of fucking people, Mac.” That makes MacCready look up with only his eyes to see her brows furrowed as she stares out the door to his right. The worst of her memories making themselves present in her conscious.

“The sick part is… I don’t feel anything.” She says with a small chuckle from an emotion MacCready couldn’t quite read. “I remember the first person I killed. Some… poor commie-bastard who stood between me and the American prisoners they were holding. One shot. Zero hesitation, just like I was trained. The bullet went right between his eyes and out the back with a spray of red on the wall behind him. I didn’t stop. My adrenaline went through the roof as we took out his friends and saved the prisoners, but I never felt anything. I went to sleep that night as I would have any other night.”

“My parents had no idea that they raised a killer, though.” Jessica says with another dry chuckle. “They thought I was a nurse taking care of wounded soldiers behind the front lines. That’s why you don’t see any scars. I would have them all removed before I got home so they wouldn’t know the kinds of things I had been getting myself into. I guess it really doesn’t matter now, though.”

MacCready threads the last stitch through with clenched teeth. Her story sounds a lot like his own. She lied to her parents just as he had lied to Lucy. MacCready feels his chest ache as he looks up to see her expression and a there’s smile pulling at her lips, but they only lead to eyes hooded with sadness, or is it guilt? He couldn’t be sure. He wants to say something, the words of comfort at his tongue; telling her that she’s not alone. His fear of getting close stops him, however, and he looks back down at her arm, angry at himself for not trusting her even after what she’s just told him. Even though he knows that she may be the only person who can help him get the cure for Duncan.

“Oh, you’re done?” Jessica says, breaking him out of his thoughts and looking down at his work. “Nice job, Mac. You’re a natural.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've had writers block for months and can't seem to write anything for any of my original stuff, so... writing prompts! I found this prompt list here: http://mechayourown.tumblr.com/post/141169725499/sentence-prompts
> 
> Maybe they'll help me get back to some of my original work.


End file.
